"We agreed to a MOU (memo of understanding) before negotiating a long-form NRL contract," Castle said.

"When we went through the details of the contract with Fifita's management we couldn't agree so today we went our separate ways.

Unfortunately Andrew was under media pressure to announce his decision and he made the decision to announce he was joining the Bulldogs on Twitter.

Raelene Castle

"Our media policy is that we don't announce signings until we have that long form contract signed.

"Unfortunately Andrew was under media pressure to announce his decision and he made the decision to announce he was joining the Bulldogs on Twitter.

"That put us in something of a position and we ended up in a situation that wasn't our usual media protocol."

Castle refused to divulge what part of the deal could not be agreed but maintained the club would not have been over the salary cap had Fifita signed on.

"I am not at liberty to discuss the finer points of the contract and at the end of the day we couldn't get the deal done," she said.

"There have been figures that are reported that are not correct and everyone at the club was in agreement we have made the right decision and we move on."

The decision to scrap the Fifita deal will allow coach Des Hasler to sign a top-class full-back, with Wests Tigers star James Tedesco sure to be on the club's radar.

Castle revealed the money saved on Fifita would be used to bolster other parts of the squad and acknowledged there was plenty of depth in the club's forwards to cope without him.

"Our forward pack has been very good over the last couple of week and we have a high level of comfort that we have plenty of depth," Castle said.

"This decision allows us to make other decisions about the squad."

The representative front-rower made the shock admission last week that he wished he had signed to play rugby instead of joining Canterbury and Castle admitted she was not too pleased to see his comments, but denied they scuppered the deal.

"It wasn't ideal, but had we got things sorted with Fifita's management the deal would have gone ahead," she said.

Free trade is the oldest argument in federal politics and the issue that literally defined the federation era but opposition exists to the TPP, courtesy of the Investor-State Dispute Resolutions clause.